


Raptors in the Wasteland

by ShortPirateCaptain



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Jurassic Park - All Media Types, Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta, Cute, Deathclaws, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Pack Bonding, Pack Dynamics, Raptors, just for fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-07 08:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16850488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShortPirateCaptain/pseuds/ShortPirateCaptain
Summary: Owen Grady believes that he and his pack of vicious (adorable) velociraptors are being taken to an underground sanctuary to wait out the inevitable war that is coming. Instead he and his girls are frozen and experimented on while on ice until the scientists have no use for them and leave the vault. When the cryochamber malfunctions, Owen Grady wakes up cold and pissed off with voices in his head.*I am putting Jurassic World in the Fallout timeline.





	1. Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> I have been on a Jurassic World and Fallout kick for weeks now and decided to say "Why not" and mashed them together. This is completely just for fun on my part and something fun to read for whoever wants to read it.

They had told him it was only decontamination when they forced him into an uncomfortable blue jumpsuit then locked him away in the tiny chamber. His raptors: Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo, had been brought to the same facility after being carefully sedated and put into their own little chambers for decontamination. That is what Owen had been told at least. He had not been able to ask too many questions in the scientists' rush to get him underground. He knew that the big boom was coming-everyone knew it was coming. 

However, when he isn't let out of the tiny chamber and he feels a chill go down his spine, he knows that something here isn't right. This was not decontamination, but it was too late. The next time he would wake up it would be two hundred and ten years in the future and things would not be the same. 

* * *

The first thing he wakes to is the blaring klaxon alarm. His entire being feels like a popsicle and his veins feel like ice. This was much worse than when he had complained about the cold when he had been stationed at Anchorage, Alaska before the Chinese had attacked it. He had been lucky to not have to witness the eleven year war that had waged up there. He quietly hoped that his old unit had made it out alive. 

Now he had the pleasure of waking up freezing cold with zero knowledge of what happened to him. Owen knew he was in the United States; he and his pack had been transported to a highly secure military vault in Massachusetts. He could vaguely remember that it was close to Boston, but in the south below Jamaica Plane, his questions had not been answered after that. Men in black suits and dark sunglasses had hauled him from the vehicle he rode in and straight into the facility.

When Owen finally falls out of what he now knows as a cryochamber, thanks to the automated voice playing along with that damned alarm, even his gasps for breath send pain through his lungs. When he flexes his fingers and toes, he feels that frostbite had taken effect and it sends shocks of anger through his entire body. He had been told that he and his girls were being taken to an underground sanctuary where they would wait out the war. No one knew for sure what would be happening to the world but the world had taken every precaution.

He had taken up this opportunity when Misrani told the crew that Jurassic World would be closing. Recourses had become too rare for them to keep the dinosaurs fed and the park running. Many handlers had stayed behind on the island to take care of their animals for as long as they could or until their food ran out. Herbivores started dying off first and the carnivores had taken over most of the island after being freed from their enclosures. Very few people had remained on the island, Owen being one of them. He had only left after being approached by Dr. Wu and asked to join in a program that would allow him and his raptors safety.

Owen had no idea what had happened while he was on ice, nor how long it had been. What he did know is that he had to find his pack and get out of here. He forces himself up off the ground and rubs the ice away that has formed on his eyelashes, he is still stiff when he moves from the room and into the hallway connected to the cryochambers. His head is pounding and his vision goes fuzzy when all of the sudden there is a voice in his head that is absolutely not his. Emotions that are not his flood through his body and he can't catch himself when he falls to the floor in shock and pain.

_"Alpha? Pain pain pain. Where are you? Need you? Stuck!"_

Grady lays there and withers in his own pain and the pain that is not his. The voice gets louder and it is only then does he recognize that there is more than one voice in his mind. There are four distinctive voices rocketing through his head and he fights to get a grip on his own emotions; to separate them from the four other sets that bombard him.

It takes him longer than he would like to admit for him to get back to his feet and stumble through the hallways. Owen doesn't know where he is going only that he knows that he is following the voices that lead deeper into the facility. There was never going to be a sanctuary for him and his pack. He feels _different_. Different in a way that makes him deeply uncomfortable. The jumpsuit he wore had been tight before he went into the chamber but now it is downright suffocating. The boots he wears are tight to the point of pain and he has to unzip the suit to be able to actually breath.

_"Alpha! here Alpha. We need you!"_

"Shh. I'm coming as fast as I can." He says out loud and is surprised when the voices in his mind quiet to a dull roar and the emotions that are not his go away aside from a mild sense of panic and hunger. Finally. _Finally,_ he gets to where the voices are coming from. He opens the door to the room and he is shocked at what he sees in the individual holding cages around the room.  

Each one has one of his girls in it. All of them looking perfectly healthy but different than the last time he had seen them. Features were different and their colors more vibrant, but they are still his girls. Cries of _Alpha!_ echo through his mind as he steps into the room. He had been away from them far too long.

It takes him a bit, but he is able to find the releases on each of their cages and Blue is the first one on him. His Beta rubs against him and he knows that the other three would be next. It had been so long that he probably did not smell like _pack_ anymore. He knew now that the voices he heard in his mind were those of his raptors. He had no idea what Wu and the other scientists did to him or his girls, but they were now connected on a much deeper level.

"We need to get out of here." Owen says and his girls are quick to line up in front of him, Blue slightly ahead of the other three. He gives them all a pet before turning back around and going back the way he came. He needed to go up and get out of here. Food was the first thing on the menu.     


	2. The Wasteland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get chapters out faster than usual for now. Hope ya like this one!

The group of five, one human the others velociraptors, made it to the very top of the facility. Along the way, Owen had gathered any intelligence he could get his hands on and had finally found a change of clothes other than the suffocating vault suit. He figured it had belonged to one of the guards who no longer guarded anything. A ten millimeter pistole with a couple of rounds still in the clip had been at the bottom of the locker. He had taken that as well and it now rested in a loop on his pant leg. What food he found had been swiftly devoured by himself and his girls; hardly filling but it had been better than nothing. Now the group stood at the top and looked at the giant cog door that separated them from the building that hid the underground facility.

"You ready girls?" Owen asks and gets four excited barks in response. The voices of his girls rebounded in his head until Blue calmed them down with a sharp look.

 _"On your lead, Alpha."_ Blue says and Owen gives her a pat on the neck. She is his Beta for a reason and she knew she was good at it.

"Now to find out how to open this place up," The sole human muttered to himself. He and the girls fanned out across the large entrance room to look for anything that might help them open the vault door. Echo had been the one to grab his attention and bring over an object with a glowing green screen. It looked more like a giant wrist watch and Owen could recall it being a pipboy.

"Good girl," he praised and slipped the device on his arm and closed the clasp. The pipboy immediately lit up and data scrolled across the screen. The Vault-tech mascot popped up on the screen to do a little wave before it disappeared and information about Owen came up instead. He quietly wondered how it got the readings it was showing, but those thoughts vanished when he seen the time and date in the lower left corner of the screen. **_February 16 2288_** ** _-1300 Hours._**

Owen did the math in his head quickly and the realization tossed him on his ass in shock. His pack could sense his conflicting emotions and grouped around him in a defensive wall, snapping at an enemy they could not see. Blue was the one to come to him, pushing her mind into his own to sort through his crazed thoughts over what had happened to them.

 _"Many years have passed but we are still us."_ She says and Owen latches onto her mind to bring his own out of his shocked state. _"You are still Alpha."_

Owen nods but still does not stand and instead rests his head against the blue scales of his Beta. He projects calm through their bond and slowly the apex predators surrounding him calm down but still remain close.

"Two hundred and ten years have passed." He whispers and looks at the girls. The five of them could be the oldest things this world has ever seen. Unknown to them however, he was sadly wrong in that regard. None of them knew what lay ahead of them outside of the vault door. It was now that Owen decided he had had enough wallowing in his thoughts. He stands and his girls perk up along side him. Up on the platform he went to the only thing that looked like a control panel to open the giant door. He accesses it through the port he has plugged his pipboy into and selects yes when asks if he wants to open the door.

Another, even louder, alarm goes off in the main room and Owen cringes at the sound the alarm and the screeching of the door makes together. It takes a while but the door finally opens and he and the girls see first hand what has happened to the once green world they had lived in. There had been a building that covered the vault door, that building was now gone from the atomic blast. Their world was still green, only green in a way that radiation could only provide. Owen could feel the hot pricks of it against his skin and knew his girls could feel it as well. The combined discomfort had easily mixed with his. Owen had to get them out of here and fast.

The five of them retreated into the relative safety of the vault and through a door where the radiation could no longer get them. Owen pulls up the pipboy and holds it out far enough to let his pack see as well. There is a little mark that represents Owen and by that he is able to see where they were at.

Vault 123 it read. That is where the men in black and Dr. Wu had taken them. To be frozen on and experimented inside of the vault. From the few uncorrupted or erased files he had been able to dig up, Owen guessed that he and his girls had changed much more than just being able to share a head space. He had ignored the new features the four of them had but now that he had time, he had to look more closely. He recalled one of the files on Charlie-her DNA being spliced with chameleon DNA. She had kept the muted colors on most of her body, but the blue on her face that covered both of her eyes had turn a brilliant shade of royal blue. Now that he thought about it he had seen her change colors to match the floor every now and then-like she was figuring out a new trick.  

He had no idea what else had happened to the pack other than that they had gotten bigger it seemed and some changes were more evident than others. Echo was a prime example of that. Her once smooth scales had turned bumpy with ridges and she was quite a bit bulkier than her sisters, the formations on her tail almost made it more crocodilian in  shape. He could see very little change in either Blue or Delta. His dark green beauty of a raptor had longer arms than she once had and he thought her fingers looked more defined than her sisters. He did not want to think of what they had done to him.

 _"Changed but the same."_ His Beta whispered though his mind and the other pack members heartily agreed with her. They were still the same pack even though some things had changed, it had only made them stronger as a unit. He agreed with them and turned back to the green screen on his pipboy.

"We need to head North. Stay off as many main roads as we can until we can get out of this radiation. I have no idea how irradiated it is here or how quickly it will affect us." Owen says and gets nods in return. They had to get out of here as fast as possible and find food. He could feel his girls hunger and even his own would make him weak sooner rather than later if they did not find anything.

The next hour was spent going over possible paths with his girls and deciding which way would be the safest route for them to go. It had been decided that they would take the road east then turn north until they got to Jamaica Plane. It had been a small town to begin with and Owen wondered what it would look like after two hundred and ten years of nuclear fallout. It was only around three miles away so the pack would try their hardest to get there before sundown and find shelter. Food and hopefully water would have to be found along the way, his girls would eat anything that moved aside from him.

After they had planned their route, the pack made their way back out of the facility to the still open vault door. Venturing outside caused the sting of radiation to return but they powered through it. Owen broke out in a jog and sent Echo and Charlie ahead of the pack to scout ahead and to report back if either found food or shelter. It would be a very long rest of the day, but Owen, and his pack by extension, knew they could do it.              


	3. Learning

It takes them around two hours to make it to the first signs of Civilization they come across. The pack had stopped along the way when Charlie came back and told them that her and Echo had spotted potential food ahead of them. Owen had his youngest raptor show him the way to where Echo lay hidden in what little shrubbery was left on the land. The five of them then waited and eyed what Owen might have considered a herd of deer back before the bombs fell. 

There were six of them, two bucks and four does, and four of them would be enough to satisfy the packs hunger. The running they had done had already weakened them more than they would like to be. It was time to hunt.

Owen was quick to position his pack in a way that would group the deer together and be easy for his girls to take down. Echo and Blue would lay in wait while Charlie would herd them toward their position, Delta helping her pack mate by making sure at least one buck and doe were split away from the main herd. It was unethical for Owen to kill off the entire herd and his girls agreed with him. He himself would be waiting with Blue and Echo the assist in taking down one the does.

He waited for the pack to be in position before letting out a sharp whistle that had Charlie bursting out of the struggling foliage, scaring the herd. Seconds later, Delta joined her sister and separated two of the herd. She made sure to chase the buck and doe away from the rest before joining Charlie once more to lead their dinner to her Alpha. Taking down the four deer had taken less out of he and his pack than he thought it might have. Back at Jurassic World, he would take them for hunts in the restricted area and take down a Gallimimus or Pachycephalosaurus that had wondered away from the herd. Owen had always gotten permission from the handlers before taking it down.

Owen had taken care of one of the does that had gotten close enough for him to grab onto her. Blue took down the lead buck while Echo and Delta took down the last two females. The kills were quick and easy and in seconds the girls were devouring their kills. Owen had made sure to cut off choice strips of meat from his own before giving the deer to Charlie who had not taken down her own deer.

Now an hour later after the very successful hunt, their bellies were full and a house with what looked like people were ahead of them. Owen slowed from his jog and gathered his girls around him. He reached out with him mind and connected with all of them to have an internal group conversation, "Do not be seen. Spread out and wait for my signal. I don't want these people to attack." He gets four nods of acceptance and Owen is quick to praise is his girls on being such good listeners. Blue isn't happy that he is going alone into unknown territory but she accepts it anyways. She knows that it would cause more problems if people seen her and her sisters running around.

His girls disappear into the surroundings and soon he can not see them, but he can still sense them and they are close. Owen approaches the small settlement and takes in the dilapidated house half sunk in the old swamp of the ground. A pitiful farm is beside the house with a water pump beside it. He can hear the rumble of generator somewhere and he clears his throat before calling out a tentative _Hello!_

Grady must have snuck up on the three people that are gardening out in the tiny farm cause one startles and another lets out a yell of fright. The third whips toward him with a pistol that looks more like a pipe taped to a stick of wood and Owen quickly throws his hands up in a peaceful sign.

"Who are you and what do you want?" The man with the pistol demanded and steps over the plants in his way until he is a few feet away from Owen.

"I'm Owen and I'm not really from around here. I was hoping you could maybe help point me in the right direction?"

The man narrows his eyes at Owen and it takes him a long minuet to lower his weapon, "Where did you come from?"

"South. Never settled anywhere. Just a wanderer."

Another long silence passes by them until the man steps up and offers his hand to Owen. "I'm Michael but most people just call me Mick. Those two over there are my wife and daughter Amanda and Rachel." Owen waves at the two and gives them a small smile. Rachel, Mick's daughter who looks around eight, waves back enthusiastically. Owen is surprised when he hears Charlie coo over the little girl. She must have hidden herself away with her new abilities.

"I've got some meat if you don't mind me using your cooking fire over there?" Owen says and pulls off his bag and hands it over to Mick to look through. Owen had not eaten anything when he and the girls had taken down the deer earlier that day, hadn't wanted to risk eating something that would make him sick. The deer had been mutated with extra legs and some even an extra head that flopped uselessly around. The girls had said the meat had tasted funny but they had ate it anyways and none of them were showing any signs of sickness so he figured they would be all right.

"This is good meat. Where did you get it?" Mick asks and Owen explains that he had found an injured deer thing and had killed it and taken the meat the doe had left. It wasn't entirely a lie but Owen sure as hell wouldn't be telling him how he had led a vicious pack of supposedly extinct animals on a hunt.

"Mighty lucky for you to find the poor thing. And around here they are called RadStags. Mutated and nasty looking but their meet is good if you can kill one of them. I can use this to make some jerky if you wanna stay a few days." Mick says and Owen smiles at him.

"That sounds like a great idea actually. You are the first people I've come across in a long time." 

Owen is then properly introduced to both Amanda and Rachel. This little girl is quite taken with the giant man with a pistol she has never seen before hanging on his hip. She badgers him with questions and Owen is happy to amuse her with his answers, some of them wild and crazy. 

He feels Blue and the others now patrolling the house and Charlie has snuck up as close as she dared to watch her Alpha play with the little girl. She thinks the hatchling is cute and is reminded that her Alpha once treated her and her sisters like that when they had been young as well. 

The next few hours were spent getting to know the small family while curing and preparing the meat. Owen had learned that all animals in the wasteland had mutated some way or the other. Deer became what he had seen as Radstags and cows had become two headed now called Brahmin more often than not. Bears had become giant from the radiation and were called Yao Guai. Owen made sure to relay everything he heard from Mick to his pack who now found a small clearing to settle down for the night. 

Mick told his guest the things to watch out for in the Commonwealth and the places that were consider safe, or at least as safe as a person could be in the wasteland. Dimond City was the largest settlement that could be found here in Boston, but other settles were popping up all over the Commonwealth with the help of the Minutemen's General. When questioned about her Mick could not give too many details since he had not met her personally. He did not know her name other than that she is the General and that she had yet to come this far down south. 

"Well if I come across her then I'll make sure to send her down this way. You all look like you could use a little help being in the middle of no where," Owen says and the family in front of him give him a grateful smile.

"That would be appreciated its hard work living here, but we would not give it up for anything." Amanda says and Mick nods along in agreement with his wife. "We have raider problems sometimes, shooting at the house and stealing off with our food."

"Raiders?" Owen questions and feels his girls perk up at the attention Owen gives Amanda. She tells him about the raiders and where the hideout is, but it is only the two of them with their little girl so it is too much of a risk to take them out themselves. Owen understands that too. If he did not worry about his pack getting hurt he would go take out the unorganized rabble himself. He had been in the Navy and had been stationed up at Anchorage before the bombs had dropped. His job had been to train the military dogs up there to help sniff out any bombs or whatever else the Chinese had decided to throw that way. He was sure that he could take on a small group of them, even as his girls protested that he would be doing no such thing without them. 

 _"We are pack Alpha. We protect and hunt together."_ Blue whispers to him and his girls agree with their Beta and sister. They would not let their delicate human of an Alpha go off and let himself be killed trying to help people. Charlie may thought that the hatchling was cute, but that meant nothing to her if it put her Alpha in danger. 

"I'll make sure the General knows that too if I see her." Owen tells the family instead and they say their thanks before dispersing from the room to begin getting ready for bed. Mick stays behind and hands Owen an old piece of paper that has lines and little marks drew all over it.

"A map of the locations we know about in the Commonwealth. You should be able to map those onto your pipboy. Seen a vault dweller do it once before." Mick says and watches as Owen gets to work on doing just that. It doesn't take too terribly long and Owen hands the map back to its owner, "Where did you get that thing from anyways? You don't have the look of a vault dweller."

Owen hesitates in answering and Mick takes it as though he has gone too far in his questions. He goes to apologize when Owen finally answers, "I am from a vault. Just down south about two miles. We-I got out of there as fast as I could. No one was there when I woke up and it was irradiated to hell." 

"When you woke up?" Mick asks and sits back down on the old sofa across from Owen. The bigger man does not want to tell Mick about what has happened to him so he only tells him that he woke with a massive headache and two weeks of memories gone with no clothes other than the things he found around him and in the vault. Mick makes a sympathizing noise. He couldn't imagine going through that. It was amazing that Owen looked how he did instead of malnourished and weak. He was probably one of the biggest human being that Mick had ever seen before, easily over six and a half foot. 

"Well you are welcome to stay here and get your bearing for as long as you need as long as you help around the house. Gather water, pick veggies, things like that." Mick says and Owen nods gratefully. It would be good to rest and learn more about the world he lived in now. It would also help his girls get more acquainted with the wildlife around here as well. There were only two things in the wasteland that he though would give his girls a run for their money. The radscorpions and deathclaws that Mick had told him about earlier. Had said that those were two of the most territorial creatures in the wasteland. Things that just got angry when you shot at them. 

However, night was approaching and it was about time for him to finally get some rest after a rather stressful day. Blue echoed his statement and told him that the other three had already fallen into a light doze and Blue had stayed up to keep watch and to make sure Owen was safe. Knowing that her Alpha was safe, she laid her head down and dozed off with her sisters. They would wake if danger came around. 

Mick showed Owen to a back room with a dingy mattress on the floor, "Sorry it isn't much. We hardly have visitors that aren't trying to kill us." Mick says and Owen waves him off and thanks him for the bed. It would be better than other places he had seen before. Him and his pack needed rest. The coming days would only be harder. 

 


	4. Nora Jennings: Menuitmen General

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy, chapter four! Also if anyone out there is interested in possibly being a Beta reader lemme know. I need one like I need air. Also! so sorry this chapter took so long to get out. Life got in the way.

Nora Jennings-pre war doting house wife and loving mother had been frozen in a god forsaken vault and woken up scared and alone. She had watched her husband be shot in the head by a man she vowed to hunt down and her baby taken by people in environmental suits like her baby had been radioactive. Nora had stumbled out of the vault with ice still on her cheeks and down the hill to Sanctuary where she had cried herself to sickness in the arms of her Mr. Handy, Codsworth.

Nora had pulled herself together and her and Codsworth had searched the neighborhood for Shaun, even though she knew they would not find anything. It was after that she had found out what had happed after the bombs had fell. She was told it had been two hundred and ten years on the dot and had another mental breakdown. She was two hundred and forty two years old! Her Mr. Handy had patted her head and said in his chipper British voice _, "You don't look a day over twenty-five Mum!"_ She had blubbered out a thank you and spent another hour getting herself back together. She was old and in a post apocalyptic future she could have a mental breakdown if she wanted to, damnit!

Nora had gone into her old house and had taken in the destruction that the blast had caused. Codsworth had told her that he had kept the looters away as best he could but there was only so much an old Mr. Handy could do against a group of people. Most of their things were gone, taken by people who needed it more than the sole survivor of the household. Nora had gathered the lone teddy bear that sat in Shaun's old crib and had clutched it close to her heart. 

 _"I'll get you back baby. No matter what."_ She had whispered and she meant it. Nora had pulled herself together for the final time that day and had gathered as much useful stuff she could find throughout her old neighborhood. When she was done, it was well past sunset and she was tired and sore. Codsworth had given her a cold bottle of water that wasn't terribly irradiated and roasted boatfly, from the ones the two had cleared out earlier.

Now it was almost four months after Nora had woken up in that vault and she has become General of the Minutemen, taken down Kellogg with the help of Nick Valentine, and was now trying to find a way into the glowing sea to find a man named Virgil. It had been a wild trip going through the mercenary's memories and listening to that awful voice coming out of the mouth of her best friend. She swore off every using the Memory Loungers ever again.

Nora knew that getting into the Glowing Sea would be one of her toughest challenges to date. Maybe even more so than taking back the Castle for the Minutemen. Preston Garvey had been her constant through her leadership ever since she had saved him and the group of survivors in Concord from raiders and then a Deathclaw.

She would have already tried to go into the Glowing Sea but her lack of power armor had become a major problem. The Mirelurk Queen had corroded several plates of armor and Nora now sported a rather large burn on her right thigh. Sturges had tried his best to repair the armor, but he did not have the correct wiring or the time to do it. Settlements always needed generators and water pumps; Sturges was the only one who knew how to build the ones that would last the longest.

It did not help that the Brotherhood of Steel had shown up in their floating fortress and began to search the Commonwealth for any and all technology, hoarding it and taking it away from the struggling settlers that _needed_ that technology. That is what Nora had been preparing for, a meeting with Elder Maxson.

It was Paladin Danse that had mentioned that maybe the two of them should meet and talk about their goals for the Commonwealth. Nora had agreed and said she would like to meet him on common ground-neither Brotherhood or Minutemen territory. It had been decided that the two would meet at the old gas station right outside either of their territory. It had been the same gas station that Nora and her militia had met at before taking back the Castle. The place had already been cleared out and maps and charts laid out on the counter in the middle of the station. It was now time for her to go meet the Elder.

Back at the Castle Nora had made sure to dress in the General uniform to make sure she looked the part of leader of her faction. Danse had told her that Maxson was an intimidating man and could roll over what other people would have to say to him on some occasions. Nora had narrowed her eyes and had told her friend that she had delt with worse than whatever Maxson could throw at her back before the bombs fell. Even in her time she had slaved away to become something great, something to help the people. Her law degree might not mean anything now, but she was still proud of it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the loud propellers on the vertibird and she straightened up to her full height and placed her hands behind her back. She hoped she looked as leadershiply as she thought she did. Preston gave her an encouraging smile before letting it drop to stand back at attention.

Nora got an eyeful when the Elder walked in. She had not expected him to look so young. Sure the scar and haircut gave him an older appearance, but he did not have the age lines and grey hair that she had been expecting. Danse had not told her anything about the elder other than that he was overbearing. It was then he opened his mouth and placed himself one foot in the grave in Nora's opinion.

"You must be the General of the Minutemen. Honor to meet you." He says and sticks his hand out to Preston Garvey.

Preston does not miss a beat and actually takes a step back and gestures to Nora, "I'm the Colonel. Nora Jennings is the General, Sir."

Maxson cuts his eyes over at Nora who is standing there and trying to keep a smug smile of her face. She takes the necessary steps forward and instead clasps Maxson's hand in her own and give it a firm shake, "Honor to meet you Sir. Paladin Danse speaks highly of you, but I see that he did not tell you that I am the General."

Maxson's face goes pink and Nora feels smug again, "Ah, my apologies Ma'am. It is a pleasure to meet you. Now I think we should get down to business yes?"

Nora grunts in agreement and takes her hand back from him, "Yes. To get straight to the point Elder, every since you got here my settlements have been struggling to get by because you have scavenged almost every wire, screw, and lightbulb in the Commonwealth. Things that my settlers need to build generators and turrets so they can live safely without the threat of Raiders coming down on their heads."

"Our mission in the Commonwealth _General_ , " He seems to sneer the word and Nora narrows her eyes at the blatant disrespect he is showing her, "Is to make sure that settlements like yours are safe from the technology of the old world. The synth threat this part of the Wasteland faces is why we are here, and if that means we have to scavenge what we need than so be it. There are plenty of places for your settlers to pick from."

"Old world Technology?" Nora questions then reaches out to take an old pencil in her hand. Needed to have something to occupy them unless she wanted to strangle the man in front of her, "You consider the few screws and wires hanging around sunken houses and gas stations to be enough to support over six settlements with at the least ten people at each one?"

"I have known people to survive with less." Maxson says and Nora wants to stab him in the eye with her pencil, "They should be fine with what they are able to dig up."

"We are not trying to survive. We are trying to _Live!_ " Nora stresses and glares at the Elder. How dare he say that about her people, "you do not have the right to do this to my people. If you want to scavenge then scavenge places my people deem too high of a risk. Every one of your people are trained soldiers with power armor and the resources to go places my people can not."

"Why would I want to endanger my people like that?" Maxson says and Nora remembers that he is at least twelve years her younger and is now acting like a surly teenager that did not get his way.

"Because they are better outfitted than my people. They are settlers, civilians if you will. It goes against everything I stand for to have what is essentially a military to take such needed resources from people who are struggling to begin with. I have heard great things from Paladin Danse; however, I am failing to see if anything runs true or not." Nora says and knows that she has hit his ego with a sledgehammer, "We can come to an agreement if you so wish. Places where each of us can scavenge what we need."

"I should have my men raise your pitiful militia to the ground over what you have said. You are lucky I am a reasonable man General." Maxson says and Nora could knock the superior look off his face, "Possibly we could work together on this? Your people know where and quite possibly the best places to find old technology. If yours show us where it is then we will leave behind the things we do not need. We'll even clear out the building for your settlers if you so wish."

Nora takes a deep breath and thinks on his offer. Preston looks angry at the back and fourth the two leaders have gone through this early in the morning. However this would probably be the best deal either of the two would settle on, it annoyed him that this _boy_ thought himself so high he could trample over everyone else trying to live in the Commonwealth.

The next few hours are spent with both leaders going back and forth over territory and what building or particularly cluttered spot were theirs. Arguments erupted every now and then, but they had finally drawn up a good enough deal that both leaders were happy as they could be in this situation. Now Nora and Maxson across the bar that had been build in the middle of the building sharing a bottle of old whiskey. Nora is surprised when Maxson turns to her and opens his mouth to speak.

"I must apologize. It was not professional of me to say the things I did when meeting you." He struggles with the words but Nora can tell that he means them and she feels suddenly guilty about saying the things she had as well.

"I'm sorry as well, Elder. It's been a hard few days and I should not have snapped at you like I did." Nora tells him and reaches out to clink her chipped glass against Maxson's own. The two talk in hushed tones of what they have both experienced in the Commonwealth and their own factions before Paladin Danse interrupts them with a clearing of his throat.

 "Sir, it is time we return to the Prydwen. The hour grows late and this place is not as safe as I would like it to be." 

"You are right Paladin. Gather the troops signal for a 'bird." Maxson says and stands to walk toward where his copy of the deal lay on the counter. He give Nora a Brotherhood Salute before walking out the door to board the vertibird that had landed seconds before. "Farewell General. Until we meet again."

"let's get back home too Nora," Preston says and takes away the empty glass from his friend. She nods and stands with Preston and goes to grab her own copy. "Guess that is that huh?"

"Guess it is. Let's hope that him and his tin cans will honor it." 

        

 


End file.
